Judo players stay focused at Motherwell

The Bupa Charity Open Grand Prix competition was held at the Ravenscraig regional sports facility in Motherwell at the start of this month and Focus Judo Club from Galashiels had six of their players representing their club.'The results were: Arran Little (u38kg) Bronze, James Glendinning (o48kg) Silver, Ewan Jones (u30kg) Bronze and Holly Shepherd (o48kg) Silver.

Published:06:25Thursday 02 July 2015

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Focus Judo Club members returned from the Bupa Charity Open Grand Prix competition at the Ravenscraig regional sports facility boasting a cluster of medals.

Six players travelled to Motherwell to represent the Galashiels-based club, with Arran Little (u38kg), James Glendinning (o48kg), Ewan Jones (u30kg) and Holly Shepherd (o48kg) all getting in among the prizes.

Arran fought through some tough opposition to gain a well-deserved bronze medal and his good friend, James, also did exceptionally well to get silver in a tough category. Ewan is constantly improving and added a brilliant bronze medal to his growing collection.

Holly is also constantly improving and won all but her final fight of the day to secure the silver medal. Harry Chisholm fought well and, as a very determined competitor, is likely to see some success in the future.

Monica Riddell was impressive, competing in a weight category above her own weight class. Instead of pulling out due to a low turn-out, Monica agreed to the step up, where she applied herself well to gain valuable experience.

Focus head coach Tam Hardie said: “We gained four medals from six players today, which is a very good result for us.

“This takes nothing away from the other two players either, because they fought their hearts out and keep getting better at every event.

“Their time will come too.

“We are all very proud of our competitive players as it takes loads of guts and courage to compete in these events.

“All in all, it was a very good day for us.”

Also on the day, club coach James Hunt was presented with the accreditation award for Focus Judo from Judo Scotland’s chairman, Ronnie Saez.